Gastonia home showcases couple's finds, talents

Published: Friday, March 1, 2013 at 08:31 PM.

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Looking back, they agree their decision to leave Charlotte for Gastonia was a good one.

For Ed it was a homecoming of sorts.

He launched his design career at O.G. Penegar in Gastonia where fresh out of college he was hired as the office furniture company’s design director. The job took him across the east coast doing design work for commercial clients, including Eastern Airlines and the North Carolina Bank National, the forerunner of today’s Bank of America.

After a long career with several interior design and architecture firms in Charlotte, he continues to be involved in residential and commercial design projects as a consultant.

Ed, who has written about interior design column for The Gazette, will resume his column later this spring, offering advice on everything from achieving the right look through lighting to how to choose a paint color that works.

The couple’s home captures one of the most important lessons of design one can learn – don’t be smitten by the trends of the moment – today’s “must have” granite kitchen countertops and stainless steel appliances could be on tomorrow’s “don’t even go there” list.

“I always say don’t go with the times, go with what works for you,” said Ed. “If you do that, you can’t go wrong.”

Driving back from their mountain home to Charlotte, Ed and Vicki Starr decided to stop in Gastonia and look at houses.

A brief try at condominium living had made the couple restless for a home again – preferably with the rooms all on one level – and their own yard.

They found exactly what they hoped for in the stately Forest Hills neighborhood, tucked in the historic York Chester District.

From the curb, 1211 Hillside Drive initially looked like a Plain Jane to them – the two storm doors on the front of the house didn’t offer much appeal and the landscaping didn’t exactly knock them over.

But when they stepped inside, something instantly clicked.

“It’s the overall feeling that you get,” said Vicki. “The house has great flow.”

Built in 1962 for Mr. and Mrs. Giles Beal Sr., the home is anything but a typical 1960’s ranch house. Designed in an H-shape, the center portion of the home is only one room deep, allowing a view of the rear gardens directly through the living room – one of the first things that you see when you step into the foyer.

The large windows across most of the back of the house showcase the brick-walled expanse of gardens and yard, offering a sense beauty and tranquility. The grounds were designed by landscape architect Dean A. Ogden and the home, built by Joe Jacobs of Jacobs Construction Company, is known by longtime residents of the neighborhood as “The Jacobs House.”

The layout couldn’t have met the needs of the couple better. To the right of the entranceway is the living area – a den, kitchen and dining area. Head the other direction and you’ll find the family’s private quarters – a master bedroom, a guest room, Ed’s office and a powder room.

One of the first things they will tell you is that they didn’t undertake a major renovation, which seems to be the perquisite of people buying older homes they days.

No, with a home that had great bones and solid floor plan, they have spent the past five years quietly putting their own stamp on it.

GETTING STARTED

One of the first areas they tackled was the kitchen. Vicki, a caterer, is not a fan of the kitchen blowouts people are doing today. She wanted a functional space that would not draw attention away from the rest of the house. To achieve the effect she was looking for, they painted the cabinets black so they would fade in to the room, and for some relief they installed white laminate countertops. They also replaced the stove and installed a hood over it, and Ed found a vintage pine-topped buffet in a consignment shop that they put in the middle of the kitchen that Vicki uses when cooking or doing flower arrangements.

As part of the work in the kitchen, they tackled another design issue – closing up the open pass-through window from the kitchen to the dining room – a space from the counter top to the bottom of the overhead cabinets.

“The previous owner had drawn up plans to completely open up this area from the counter top to the ceiling and relocate the refrigerator – to join the kitchen and dining area as much as possible,” explained Ed. “We are not fans of ‘open concept floor plans’ and instead of taking it in that direction, we totally closed up the pass-through.”

They installed a partition through the middle of the length of the counter top, resulting in a 12-inch deep counter on the kitchen side and a 12-inch deep recess on the dining room side. Since the wall on the dining side was already mirrored from floor to ceiling, they mirrored the inside surfaces of the recess, creating an opulent bar area on the dining room side.

“The result was expanding a visual effect of the dining room and creating the complete privacy of the kitchen, which is often not the neatest and most organized area of the house,” said Ed,

The mirrored wall may seem straight out of the 70s, Ed says, but it provides a great reflecting view of the windows facing the backyard.

For the dining room the couple chose a pale green which they continued on one of the walls in the kitchen to add continuity between the rooms. They gave the built in desk in the kitchen a new look by putting marble tiles on it.

ELEMENTS OF DESIGN

Moving into a home that didn’t need major renovations meant that the couple could concentrate on things that Ed says are the foundation of good design – the color of the walls and lighting.

Each color was carefully chosen to lead the eye from one room to the next and also to help show off the furniture and art work in each space. Throughout each room, Ed has carefully placed lighting – on top of cabinets, behind pedestals, in corners to showcase not only the contents of each room but to create a mood.

Most of the pieces in the home have a story behind them.

Ed, who scours flea markets and off-the-beaten path antique stores, is the master of a bargain.

He found the French armoire in the dining room, which dates back to the 1870s, at a consignment store. He installed shelves in it and it makes the perfect cabinet for their china and serving pieces.

In the living room sits the piece that Vicki likes to joke that she married Ed for – another armoire, this one an Art Deco cabinet dating back to the 1930s from England. Ed found it in a shop in Wadesboro more than 30 years ago and recalls paying $100 for it.

When the house was featured on this year’s York-Chester Holiday Home Tour, one of the most talked about pieces was the tall, white offertory in the foyer which Ed found at an antique store in Pineville.

The couple, who have lived in the Dilworth and Myers Park areas of Charlotte, found that they didn’t need to invest in new furnishings when they moved into their home in Gastonia because their collection fit the house so well.

JUST THE TWO OF THEM

When they are not entertaining, one room where Ed and Vicki find refuge is their den – a private space for just the two of them.

On one wall hangs a painting Ed made of an island off Tortola in the Virgin Islands where they honeymooned.

Next to the fireplace is an original Eames chair from the late 1960s and on the coffee table is a large piece of glassware from Italy that serves as the perfect place for everything from magazines to the remotes to the day’s mail.

There’s a small table with two club chairs in the room’s side bay window where the couple enjoys quiet breakfasts and dinners when it’s just the two of them.

“We live all over the house,” said Vicki, “But the den is for Ed and I.”

Although they originally weren’t struck by the front of the house, a few quick fixes turned that around. They removed the storm doors to reveal the beautiful double doors and they planted a Confederate Jasmine that climbs over the front archway.

Looking back, they agree their decision to leave Charlotte for Gastonia was a good one.

For Ed it was a homecoming of sorts.

He launched his design career at O.G. Penegar in Gastonia where fresh out of college he was hired as the office furniture company’s design director. The job took him across the east coast doing design work for commercial clients, including Eastern Airlines and the North Carolina Bank National, the forerunner of today’s Bank of America.

After a long career with several interior design and architecture firms in Charlotte, he continues to be involved in residential and commercial design projects as a consultant.

Ed, who has written about interior design column for The Gazette, will resume his column later this spring, offering advice on everything from achieving the right look through lighting to how to choose a paint color that works.

The couple’s home captures one of the most important lessons of design one can learn – don’t be smitten by the trends of the moment – today’s “must have” granite kitchen countertops and stainless steel appliances could be on tomorrow’s “don’t even go there” list.

“I always say don’t go with the times, go with what works for you,” said Ed. “If you do that, you can’t go wrong.”